engine and drivetrain The mystery of the frozen M10

[Collinster742002]

Finally, after 18 years of sitting broken in an unknown way in a a few garages, the matching motor to my Polaris got cracked open. Since I was old enough to know what an engine was I wanted to know what happened to this motor.

Here's as far as I know from my family:

Back in 1992 when the Polaris car's parts were transferred over to the Malaga body, the Polaris's engine/trans both moved to the car. Three months later, my dad was driving down the highway when the engine "just stopped"... It was running beautifully, normal coolant temp, good oil pressure. The original 4282899 engine was reinstalled into the car.

Well, I cracked the old engine open today; I can't find any indications of WHY it would have seized.

All rods are intact, the timing chain has no slack and appears brand new (I pulled that cover), Oil pump pickup and oil pan were free of any shinies (It had oil in it, black but still very good), no sludge, valvetrain was great, oil pump chain intact, spark plugs appeared very good besides an odd normal plug installed alongside 3 bosch platinums.

Cylinder walls look great. Camshaft, crankshaft, bearings and all wear items look brand new.

Any ideas? I'm stumped! P.S, sorry for the quality of these pictures. They were all taken indoors with my 3.2mp cameraphone as my Canon decided it wanted to not work again. The spark plug picture came out decent.

[Preyupy]

Can you turn it over? You said the cylinder walls looked good but I don't see any pictures with the head off. I would find it hard to believe the bores would be in usable shape after sitting for 18 years even in a heated garage. Cast iron RUSTS and my guess is the piston rings have rusted to the cylinder walls by now.

[Collinster742002]

I cannot turn it over; the engine doesn't have a crank pulley or flywheel attached to it anymore. The bores looked good when I shined a light up into them from the bottom of the engine with the oil pan off; but that was only 2 of the 4 cylinders (2 were at TDC)... The bores were filled with oil and plugs put back in before it was stored. No rust that I could see looking down into the cylinders with a slinky camera.

There any way to turn it over without a crank pulley?

[lilmo]

I cannot turn it over; the engine doesn't have a crank pulley or flywheel attached to it anymore. The bores looked good when I shined a light up into them from the bottom of the engine with the oil pan off; but that was only 2 of the 4 cylinders (2 were at TDC)... The bores were filled with oil and plugs put back in before it was stored. No rust that I could see looking down into the cylinders with a slinky camera.

There any way to turn it over without a crank pulley?

Pull plugs, and with oil pan off, wiggle crank by hand.

[Collinster742002]

That was my first instinct. Again, all con rods are intact, but couldn't get the damn thing to budge just pushing on the crank. I wish it were in a car so I could try the old pull it with a truck and drop the clutch; that always seems to free them up. Also, the tensioners and everything were also in perfect shape, even the plastic chain guide. Looked brand new.

[Kpeters]

That's odd there's gotta be something jamming the engine you have to take off the head to get a good look at it.

[Collinster742002]

I'm going to come spring break; seems straightforward enough. Basically pull the timing cover off, unbolt the 4 10mms from the cam and the head bolts and pull 'er of, right? I'm gonna slap it back together afterwards; I'm just curious as to what happened. Think maybe a valve snapped off? The spark plugs showed no indications of damage...or even running abnormally. Looked like it ran great.

[Dave_Ganzer]

Those plugs are definitely not OK.....Horrible comes more to mind...

DaveG

[Collinster742002]

One has some crusty oil gunk fouling it (2nd from the left), and the 3rd from the left looks like that cylinder burned some oil. #1 and #4 look great. I've never been a fan of platinum's in any engine, much less the M10. But the important thing is that the plugs are not physically DAMAGED in any way; I.E. the way the electrode would be smashed into the tip if the con rod had indeed let go. As far as I know this engine is original.

[jgerock]

You never know what you will find in an engine that has been sitting for a "while", especially outside.

Here's my stocking stuffer

And the reason the crank would only go about 180 degrees

[Guest Anonymous]

Is it me or are there 3 types of plugs in that picture? The tips look different on the first from the left to the second... Third is a standard copper and fourth is the same as the first

[Collinster742002]

LOL, the muffler from the cart this motor came from is filled with birdseed from the input to the output.Shame, that was a brand new muffler =/. Luckily precautions were taken with this motor and every hole was plugged with rags and then covered in bags.

There are 2 types of plugs; Bosch platinums and the 3rd is an NGK. Apparently that was the work of a half-ass mechanic who claimed to have changed all 4.

The second from the left just looks weird; almost like...cooking grease is on it... o.O That was definitely fouled at the "time of death".

[JohnS]

Those Bosch Platinum plugs should not be used on a 2002. They work like crap on an M10 motor. I always recommend using either an NGK BP6ES or an NGK BP5ES if you need a slightly hotter plug. I use BP5ES plugs in both of my tiis.

[Collinster742002]

Bosch Platinum's shouldn't be used in anything. Every car We've ever had them has ran like shit. The 74 was running so bad I thought it to have a burnt valve; it had some of those in it. I threw in some old bosch coppers from my brother's 1998 volvo and that smoothed her right out. I dunno what retard had the bright idea that a liiiitle tiny tip of platinum would be super awesome, because...it's not.

[Guest Anonymous]

How time plays a part in determining what happened. "Just stopped" if it is electrical means almost instantly less than 1 second not running-no power, if it is gas it means it starts to loose power in a 1 to 2 minute period then stops, if it mechanically breaks like a rod or piston "big noise" engine stops turning over and it all happens in 1 to 5 seconds.

Good luck